The former Hollywood football star who had just begun his college career at the University of Wyoming before he was tragically killed in an auto accident last week was honored in a ceremony at the college Monday afternoon.
Ruben Narcisse, 19, was killed in Colorado near the Wyoming border last Monday when the driver of the pickup he was riding in fell asleep and the truck drifted off the road.
His coach, teammates and his little sister remembered Narcisse as a good friend, a great student-athlete and a football fanatic.
"Ruben was everything you look for in a person, in a football player and in a teammate," Wyoming football coach Dave Christensen said. "He was caring, he was committed ... he was determined to be the best. He was everything you look for in a student-athlete."
Narcisse, a freshman, had just started his career at Wyoming after his years as a star linebacker for the Chaminade-Madonna Lions in Hollywood.
Christensen said the day he learned of Narcisse's death was "the most difficult day of my 28 years of coaching.
"Many people think that when you get into coaching, you do it only because of the love for the sport," he said. "For me, that's not the case. I like football but I love players, and that's why I coach.
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"I miss Ruben," Christensen added. "We all miss him."
Team captain Austyn Carta-Samuels said Narcisse was outgoing and friendly despite being a newcomer.
"Ruben had a special light about him," Carta-Samuels said. "As a scholarship player, you're always surrounded by scholarship players in study hall, in the NCAA meetings, in the dorms. So you actually have a bond with them right away that you just can't share with a walk-on. Ruben showed that you can be friends with walk-ons just as quickly as a walk-on can with one another."
He added that Narcisse was a joker but became serious when it came to football.
"He was a football player through and through," Carta-Samuels said. "Me and him, actually, did share a couple of one-on-one conversations about how important it was to him."
Narcisse's little sister, Luel, talked about her brother's love for football and how they used to watch tapes of his high school games.
"He taught me a whole bunch of things," she said. "The way that he talked about football, I wanted to play football."
Chaminade-Madonna held a tribute to Narcisse this past Friday, before their home opener. A Lions captain during his senior year, Narcisse led the team to a 12-1 regular season and all the way to the state semifinals his final season.
